This world renowned centre for musical education and excellence was in need of investment and development and so when a plot of land adjacent to the centuries old school became available it was decided to make full of use of it and this generated a highly unusual footprint which the architects chose to represent within the façade of the building producing some very challenging radial setting out and a dramatic feature bull nose.

The detail within the elevations and unusual window openings along with the over riding requirement to achieve excellent acoustics made precast the best choice for forming the facades. The chosen brick was hand made and in order to achieve the variation in detail and comply with the unusual set out there were over one hundred special brick types integrated into the panels and all the panel joints were randomly staggered meaning that no 2 units were the same.

Due to the site being directly outside Victoria Station in Manchester there was an element of the largest elevation that had to be installed on a night shift due the need to maintain access for the station during normal working hours.

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Sir Robert McAlpine

Price & Myers

Roger Stephenson Architects

Brick Faced Precast
Terracotta Dormers
Recon Stone Panels